Goodbye 2016!

I think I’d been working at Pomegranite for less than a week when everyone told me about how excited I should be for our year-end party/inspiration day. Riyad even dubbed last year’s one as one of the best days of his life.

The five month buildup was well worth it. Last Thursday we all met in the Muizenberg waterslide carpark, changed into our cozzies and immediately joined the queue of chatty children and their dads for the ride of our lives. Liz went first and very aptly flung her hands into the air and said goodbye to 2016. Some of us were even brave enough to perform olympic worthy stunts (like sliding backwards on your tummy). Sarah took an epic slo-mo video of us which you can watch on our Facebook page here.

We had planned on a dip in the ocean but as soon as we arrived the shark alarm went off so we headed straight to Tiger’s Milk to eat pizza and veggie burgers instead. We talked about what a year-end function is actually supposed to be about and although I haven’t been part of the Pomegranite family for that long I think that the day was a perfect reflection of the business and work culture that makes Pomegranite so special.

Although we’re a small team we’re all incredibly different, and doing something everyone can feel a part of is something I feel a lot of companies overlook. Every inspiration day gives us a chance to hit the refresh button and in the end it’s the work we produce that benefits from it. This year hasn’t been without a shark alarm or two. But we’ve learnt that if everyone openly communicates with each other and leaves the ocean when told, any crisis can be averted.

Ok, I’m done with all the metaphors now. I’ll simply end off the last Pomegranite blog post for 2016 with the most important lesson I’ve learnt this year from my office family – take this time to unplug and be a human, your Gmail account will still be there in 2017.